Two KC champs, including ‘Survivor’ Danni Boatwright, compete on Fox game show

The first surprise Cole Lindbergh got when he flew more than 4,000 miles to England over the summer to compete on a new Fox game show was that he wasn’t the only person from Kansas City there — and he easily recognized the other, Danni Boatwright.

In 2005, as a former beauty queen and model-turned sports radio broadcaster, Boatwright brought home one of the most coveted crowns in reality TV by outwitting, outlasting and outplaying the competition on “Survivor: Guatemala.”

Lindbergh happens to be a champion in his own right — the 2024 U.S. Air Guitar champion who competed last year in Finland at the Air Guitar World Championships.

His next big shock was learning the prize money was much, much bigger than contestants were originally told.

So when “99 to Beat” premieres at 8 p.m. CST Wednesday, Lindbergh and Boatwright will compete for $1 million in a cast of 100 Americans.

“They put us all in a giant room and the hosts came out and said you’re playing for a life-changing amount of money, $1 million,” Lindbergh said. “And we all kind of looked at each other like, wait, what’s going on? There was crying, there were hugs.

“So from that moment forward, the tension was ratcheted up.”

Actor and comedian Ken Jeong and sportscaster Erin Andrews host the new show, which Fox has heavily promoted. Andrews hyped it over the weekend during her NFL broadcast duties.

Boatwright has been telling people “this was harder than ‘Survivor.’”

“It was one of the craziest experiences I’ve ever had in my life,” said Lindbergh, a dad and corporate trainer known in air guitar circles as Slappy Nutz.

Boatwright and Lindbergh — both sworn to secrecy about details — will appear at a premiere watch party Wednesday, open to the public, from 7 to 9:30 p.m. at Chicken N Pickle, 5901 W 135th St, in Overland Park.

Boatwright was one of several reality game show veterans asked to compete. Since her “Survivor” days she’s been busying raising two sons, now 14 and 17, and has continued to model and do charitable work around Kansas City. This week she launched a podcast, her first, inspired by the Fox show.

She put her career on hold for her family — no regrets, none — but eagerly returned to competition.

“You know what? As wife and mother we do everything for our husbands and kids. I have poured everything into them,” she said.

“My whole thing for doing this was I hope to inspire other women who are in their 50s ... other mothers in mid-life, to do something major for themselves. It didn’t matter how I finished. It was everything I needed this summer.”

Rather ironically, the show cast her as a “baseball mom” and didn’t play up her “Survivor” experience.

Fun with a block of ice

The show pits 100 contestants against each other in a series of games not unlike party games you might play at home.

“I think what’s interesting with this show, the games are very DIY,” said Lindbergh. “They’re not super complicated. You could go to your junk drawer and play with your family at home. But add lights, and the cameras, it can become a stressful and kind of crazy experience.”

The first challenge booted someone right off the bat when 1,000 balloons dropped from the ceiling above the contestants but only 99 had flower leis inside. Contestants scrambled to find them.

In other games they had to thread spaghetti through penne pasta using only their mouths and melt a brick of ice with their body heat to access the whistle inside. Harder than it sounds.

“We get this little block of ice and then you have people taking off their shoes, shoving it down their shirts, rubbing it on their legs, rubbing it on their face,” said Lindbergh. “Everyone is soaking wet. Everyone is exhausted. Everyone is sweating.”

There are no second chances or immunity. At the end of each challenge, the player who comes in last is banished. The last player standing wins the jackpot.

“No one will know how difficult this was just by watching us string penne on a string of pasta,” said Boatwright. “It’s challenge after challenge after challenge, five in a day.

“It was harder, too, because on ‘Survivor’ you can fight for your life if you don’t win a challenge. But you can’t on this. You’re out.”

“You may finish second, 30th, 20th, that doesn’t matter. You do not want to be the person who finishes last,” said Lindbergh.

The competitors came “from all different walks of life, from all across the U.S.,” he said.

Boatwright was one of two “Survivor” winners on the show. A former “Big Brother” competitor played, too. There were folks who work in tech, two Detroit firefighters, sports team mascots, a family of 12, a pro basketball player, an Olympic hopeful and the man who holds the most Guinness world records.

Having an interesting backstory earned an invite. “When they saw air guitar champion ... oh yeah, let’s get that guy on there. That could be fun,” Lindbergh said.

The show contacted him in April “and next thing I know I get the call ... and I’m on my way to London,” he said.

British TV premiered a version of the show earlier this year. The British crew working on the Fox show was excited to work with trash-talking, competitive Americans “because you’re so crazy,” they told Boatwright.

“But they were also surprised how well we got along,” she said. “What the world needs now is what we had out there this summer. We all got along and enjoyed each other so much. It was really nice because you can do it. It can really happen.”

The two Kansas City competitors had a natural and especially tight connection as they competed. “I told everybody when we were in London that Kansas City supports Kansas City like no other,” said Boatwright.

“Cole is definitely entertaining. But also, I can’t wait to see what he does in life. I have been putting this campaign out there, he needs to be a national game show host. Somebody hire him, please, as a game show host. He has got to do it.”

She wanted to wear her hometown allegiance on the show, like she did on “Survivor.” But the show didn’t let her. “They missed the mark,” she said.

“I knew they couldn’t let me wear Chiefs because of the logos. But there are ways to get around it. But they weren’t even hearing it,” she said. “So I’ll be wearing red.”

She managed to sneak in some football lingo, too, as a sly shout-out for the home team. Listen for it.

That’s one of the reasons she launched “Beyond the Edit with Danni & Aggie” this week. Aggie Gunnels married former Team USA wrestler Julian Gunnels over the summer and the newlyweds, based in Minnesota, both competed on the show.

“The reason we’re doing it is an hour isn’t going to be enough time to tell the stories of the people we competed with,” said Boatwright.

The plan is to interview some of the “99 to Beat” contestants about their lives and “little things that people didn’t see” on the show, she said.

What they can’t talk about yet?

“Did I win, did I not win?” Lindbergh teased. “I’m not going to tell you. You’re going to have tune in to find out.”